The national murder rate has plummeted to its lowest level in three decades – and officials are predicting it will continue to plunge.

New statistics released yesterday by the Justice Department show the murder rate in 1997 was 6.8 per 100,000 people.

That’s the lowest percentage since 1967, when the rate was 6.2 homicides per 100,000 people. And it’s far lower than the highs of 10.2 in 1980 and 9.8 in 1991.

“Our cities are now the safest they have been in a generation,” the White House said in a statement after the analysis of FBI stats.

“A variety of studies show that crime, and especially homicide, should continue to decline into the next year, and that is good news for Americans in 1999.”

But the data – which mirrors New York City’s crime drop – also contained some disturbing news: Gun-toting young people are still killing at a relatively high rate.

Firearm killings by those ages 25 and older fell by roughly half to about 5,000 between 1980 and 1997 – but gun slayings by those 18 to 24 increased from about 5,000 in 1980 to more than 7,500 in 1997.

In addition, those in the 18-24 group were most likely to be murder victims in 1997, with a rate of 33.2 per 100,000 people.

The FBI numbers also reveal:

*City dwellers were more likely to be murder victims, but the nation’s biggest cities showed the largest decline in the murder rate.

In cities with populations above 1 million, the murder rate fell from 35.5 per 100,000 in 1991 to 20.3 per 100,000 in 1997.

*Murder rates generally were higher than the average in the South and on the West Coast, and lower in New England and the Rocky Mountain states.

*Men are most likely to be the killers and the victims. Men were more than nine times more likely than women to commit murder, and both male and female killers are more likely to target male victims.

Last week, the Justice Department reported that all violent crime had dropped 7 percent during 1997 and property crime fell 6.7 percent from the previous year.